Threat, powder mailed to Dispatch

A letter in an envelope containing an unknown powder that was intended for The Dispatch newsroom made remarks about wanting to strike back and kill for what happened to his Muslim brother, who was shot and killed by a campus police officer at Ohio State University in 2016.

Several such letters containing powder were sent recently, including one to another newsroom, one to Ohio State University and several to Ohio judges.

Donald Burrier, security manager for The Dispatch, opened the letter to the newspaper at about 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. He was wearing gloves. Burrier routinely screens the mail going to both the printing plant and newsroom and puts aside anything that’s suspicious-looking or is mailed from a prison facility, he said.

The letter, which was addressed to the newsroom offices Downtown at 62 E. Broad St., had no return address but was stamped as inmate mail from the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Burrier briefly read through the letter, which did not appear to specifically name the newspaper but made comments about supporting Islam and that this was intended to be an attack. It referenced the 2016 terrorist attack by Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old student who drove his car into a crowd near Watts Hall on the Ohio State campus, exited the vehicle and began stabbing people as he ran with a butcher knife.